Tuesday, 30 June 2015

childrens theatre research




Childrens Theatre

Polka Theatre is one of the few venues in the UK which is dedicated to producing and presenting work for young audiences. Since the doors opened in 1979, this unique venue has been entertaining children with resonant, engaging and exciting theatre. Over 90000 children visit Polka Theatre a year and are inspired by theatre.

At Polka children aged 0 to 14 enjoy a wide-range of experiences designed to make theatre a natural part of their lives, the company put on well-known children plays and stories such as; were going on a bear hunt. The company also put on newer stories like, ‘cloud pictures’. Stories are told in a very visual way, and even 9 month old babies can come and be in awe at the colourful theatre. Audiences can expect imaginative new writers, dynamic performers, inventive adaptations of popular stories and resonant subjects.

Polka is actually a registered charity! Up to 800 children visit Polka every day and Polka introduces thousands of children from disadvantaged backgrounds to theatre for the first time each year. Creative programming keeps Polka’s work fresh and relevant. Audiences can expect imaginative new writers, dynamic performers, inventive adaptations of popular stories and resonant subjects. Everything they do is focused on providing children with thrilling world-class theatre.

So basically the theatre is actually funded well by donations from the general public, meaning the prices of the tickets don’t need to be so high, so are therefore dropped to a lower price, this means that children from a not so good background or parents who didn’t have enough money can now give their children the theatres experience and everything it has to offer.

Playtime Theatre Company

Playtime Theatre Company was established in 1983 with the aim of bringing innovative and entertaining drama to young people in the South of England. Since that time we have established ourselves as one of the leading children's theatre companies, taking our productions to schools and theatres throughout the UK.

Our Maxim
Think of drama as a tool, a multi- faceted tool that can sharpen interest, hammer home a point, take the edge off a difficult subject and smooth it’s transition, bridge the gap between the written word and reality, expand a person’s horizons and lift their confidence - and, lest we forgot, it should entertain .


Foreign Touring
http://www.playtimetheatre.co.uk/pics/auFOREIGN%20TOURING.jpg
Plays for 5-11 Year olds
http://www.playtimetheatre.co.uk/pics/auplays5211.jpg
Plays for 11-16 Year olds
http://www.playtimetheatre.co.uk/pics/auplays11-16.jpg
Plays for Foundation
http://www.playtimetheatre.co.uk/pics/auplaysfoundation.jpg
It’s a tool that you can use to make your work easier and feel confident in the knowledge that it will benefit your students too, not only during their days at school, or college but also in their future lives.
Drama is a tool, a tool that you can use and we can help you to do so.
Playtime Theatre has been providing drama for educational establishments since 1983 and in that time, we have performed to countless numbers of young people, in many parts of the world, so we know our business and we know drama works.

 

Another way to teach children lessons is through story telling, the stories are usually engaging and contain a moral, the story books also usually have colourful pictures in them, a prime example being, ‘The Hare And The Tortoise’. The moral of this story is more haste less speed.

The Hare And The Tortoise

“The Hare And The Tortoise”, this is possibly the most popular children's story that I’m sure everyone has heard, it is based around the saying “More haste less speed”, the story is again two animals, which is good for engaging children, although it has a moral to the story, there are also a lot of other lessons.

In the story we can see that the Hare braggs a lot about how fast he is, and how the tortoise got fed up with him. This happens in day to day life, for example some people can be very loud about how good they are at something, and it can be an annoying thing to listen to, after this the tortoise, (Being the slowest creature), stood up to the hare and asked for a race, this shows courage and bravery, that such a small slow creature, is standing up to a fast hare, it shows the audience that being smart and witty is much more effective than just being the fastest at doing things in this case, the race , this is something we could powerfully show through movement. It also teaches kids that rushing things may ruin the end product, taking things slowly and steadily may be a slower process, but you gain a lot more knowledge.

Another story is called ‘The lion And The Mouse’, which also involves animals, which are a good way of portraying an interesting story.

An example telling childrens stories can also be on television, for example there is a show run by Cbeebies which is called ‘bedtime stories’. You can also watch the stories on the website, there are a lot of other brilliant sections on the website. For example games which is a good way to keep children entertained and learning all the time, there are also shows and you can become a member on the website. Its good to have interactive websites for children on the internet because it means that you can watch something where ever. The bedtime stories show is designed specifically to calm down the young audience by using professional story tellers, who usually have extremely soft voices, and the stories are usually calm.  

 

 

 

 

 
 


 

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Friday 19th June Mr Kelly

Today was the second to last day we had before we did the performance. We ran it once and then worked on " got the magic " song. Because that's the dance I'm struggling with. Just remembering the moves and being in time is what I need to work on. I also really want to go over the top when I'm doing all my wolf parts. Because I know I can be quite comical and can make young kids laugh and stay engaged in the performance. 

Thursday 18th June little shop

Today we ran all of the musical numbers from the acts. And we especially went over "the gas" song. Which is between me and Kyle who is playing Seymour. It's fun to do because I can go as over the top as I want. The hard thing is staying in time with the actual track. For instance during the little music sequence there is a little boom which signals me trying to pull the mask off. So I need to be in time for that. Which I'm Not very confident about at the minute. In the second part of the lesson we ran act 2 fully 

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Tuesday 16th June little shop

Today we ran the whole of act 2. And at the end of the lesson the teacher asked us to look at some of the numbers. Because I'm playing drums in the show on some songs. I'm quite happy that we are allowed to pick our own songs to play. So I can go for the slightly faster rocky stuff which is the sort of music I'm quite dynamic at 

Tuesday 9th June story telling

Today we carried on devising jack and te beanstalk. Personally it's my favourite one because I feel it flows a lot better and it's going to be a lot more engaging for the children. After a while I have also found that tom suits the part very well as he is good at storytelling with children. My favourite part of jack and the beanstalk is the small dance we do when jack gets to the top of the clouds. It's quite cheesy. But hopefully the children will find it hilarious 

Monday 15th June little shop

Today we ran over all of the dances from act one and from act 2 I feel a lot more confident with every dance now. Im finding my song a lot more fun to act because I know all the lyrics now. 

Wednesday, 10 June 2015

9th June. Tuesday. Dan smith. Little shop

Today in the lesson we went over all the musical numbers. I really enjoyed doing my song "dentist" without the vocal track. It helped me to play the character more. and it helped me to find the pitch that I wanted to sing at. I was very happy with how it went. Also I feel that all the other numbers ran well. The vocal warm up exercise at the beginning made a significant difference to my voice and I never thought it would work as well as it did. At the end of running the numbers we ran act 2 which I'm not in as much as Act 1. As I get killed right before the interval. 

Monday 8th June Dan smith little shop

Today we went over pretty much every dance. After sitting on laptops and doing theory work for a while. We headed next door in the second half of the lesson, I requested that we practice the "little shop of horrors" opening dance. Which is probably the hardest dance that's in the production. Also we hadn't gone over it for a long time so most of us had to recall all of our steps. We also went over "the meek song". Which isn't really too difficult at all, it's quite a long number however. Also there is another dance scene we went over which was "ya never know", which is also quite a tricky dance to do. But it ran quite smoothly and only took 2 or 3 attempts. 

Monday, 8 June 2015

Dan Smith thursday 4th June Meek song

This dance is probably the easiest one, however i want to go over it because i forgot some of the moves, also i have not learnt all the words yet so i need to get on with that. It would be good if we regularly went over each of the dances, Its would help us to remeber all of the steps, and then muscle memory would be able to kick in

Dan Smith Ya Never Know tuesday 2nd june

revolutionarts2016: 'Ya Never Know' Choreography



In this lesson we mostly focused on learning the choreography for 'Ya nevery know', we started learning it on Monday, but not everyone was in, due to exams being on during the lesson. fortunately i was in the first lesson so i had two whole lessons to get the dance right, Its quite fast and i still need to go over it quite a bit. Especially the Hula Hula part. Another dance its essential that we go over is, the Little Shop of Horrors opening dance is one of the hardest dances in the show, which took us actually at least 3 lessons to get right, we have not run it for a long time and i have pretty much forgotton all of it, so i need to bring it up in lesson that we need to run it occasionally.





Monday, 1 June 2015

Dances little shop of horrors

We will be going over some more choreography, and i need to work on the dances in my own time, because im quite forgetful. I find the first dance very difficult, although i finally managed to get it perfect, i need to go over it because i will have most likely forgotton some steps and movement. i need to make my movement in my song more exaggerated because i want to make it funny.

Dentist song progression

I have been working on my song alot over the half term, i have been practicing mostly in my garage because its quiet and nobody can hear me, so i can really go for it and not get embarrassed if my voice goes weird.
I also looked over my lines and did some character building, watching videos of the character so i can get a better understanding of how to act as him. I found that in my song, if i sing in a lower octive when i start the second verse i can do the higher note lower than normal, and its easier to hold. And i have a lower chance of voice cracking. Ive been starting to learn my lines, fortunately my part is only in act 1, and i have good amount of lines, but not too many. I need to practice my other small singing part, just before i die i have a few little lines that im singing to seymour. They sound quite difficult. But i have alot of frees to practice in.